


Dandelions

by contrequirose



Series: miscellaneous musings (drabbles, ficlets, and other short things) [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pre-Relationship, and how ikithon took them and made them into killers, blumenkrew, but this isnt sad, love! these! kids!, soltryce era, thinking about how soltryce was probably ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-06 02:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19053673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrequirose/pseuds/contrequirose
Summary: Her hands make crowns of wildflowers and weeds for the boys while Wulf and Bren fight over what to title the song, and by the time the sun is setting, they stumble back towards the dorms warm from the sunlight and covered in pollen and flower petals.She never wants to leave this school. Maybe, if she angles it right, she can go straight from being a student to being an assistant to being a professor, and she can teach conjuration to kids and do experiments and hang out with Bren and Wulf in the gardens outside.She hopes, at least.It seems like a good thing to dream for.(ficlet request for galo :3)





	Dandelions

**Author's Note:**

> crying about how much i love these kids

 

There are at least twenty other first-year students sitting in the rafters of the main lecture hall when she and Wulf and Bren make their way up the hidden staircase, and none of them even glance as they silently come through the trap door and settle on the left-hand side of the room.

It’s dusty, up here, but still a very much used space. There’s cushions and blankets tossed up here, ratty and worn, like students had taken one’s on the verge of being replaced in the common rooms and shoved them up here instead.

They aren’t supposed to be here, technically. The lecture going on now is for third-year students and up, but – the secret of the room above the lecture hall is less of a secret and more of a tip. They can’t see the lecture, but they can hear it, and that’s more than enough to give them a taste of what’s in store for the future and incorporate more advanced knowledge into their first-year classes.

From the intro that she can hear resonating from below and echoing in the small room, this one’s about transmutative theory. Not her favorite, but she can already hear the rasp of Bren’s quill as he starts to frantically write notes, and she smiles, relaxing against the dusty cushions.

They all have their favorite subjects. Bren is the most talented at Evocation, fire and light falling from his hands as easy as breathing, but he loves transmutation because he has to work at it. It’s a puzzle for him to solve.

Wulf prefers illusions, and he’s talented at them as well, blending new uses of prestidigitation and minor illusion together to make puppet shows for some of the little kids from the day-school down the road.

She, though – conjuration is her game.

Making things from nothing is, as Wulf would say, very, very cool.

There isn’t a lot of early stuff in that field, though, only a scarce handful of combative spells that she practices in Defense under Professor Romulus’s watchful eye, and mage hand and grease and floating disk. All of which – very good for pranks. Not very useful for anything else, unless you get creative about it.

She is a creative person, at heart, but there’s a limit to how useful such low-level spells can be.

The lecture below drones on while Bren takes notes and she doodles absently in her notebook, ink scratching out pictures of Eodwulf with a crown of dandelions on his head from the summer festival before they had left for school, of Bren sitting in the back of the wagon to Rexxentrum, eyes fixated on a bat in the night sky, of the three of them falling asleep slumped together on the stairs, the night they had gone out after curfew and gotten horrifically lost.

She’s finishing up the last one when the lecture ends, and the room around them starts to empty.

“Are there any more lectures today, Wulf?” Bren pokes him in the side, and gestures with his quill, a drop of ink landing on his cheek.

Wulf checks the schedule lurking in the back of his spellbook and shakes his head, and Bren pouts.

“Even if there were, you have Arcane Theory in thirty-three minutes. And Astrid and I have to go to Professor Kiana’s office hours to ask about the extra credit project. For music?”

She blinks, remembering. That is – they do need to do that. They’re allowed to compose a song, for an extra credit thing, and they wanted to ask if they could do a joint one so Wulf could sing and she could play violin and Bren could play piano.

Bren has Arcane Theory with the second years because he had tested out of the first year class within a week of getting access to the library here.

She’s very proud of him.

“Right, right,” he mutters, and starts to pack away his things, shoving papers and his notebooks haphazardly into his satchel.

They’re thinking about writing a song about the summer festival, and flower crowns, and dandelions – they haven’t really worked it out yet, but she’s sure it will be great.

Everything’s pretty great, here.

Bren leaves, darting down the trapdoor and the stairs to make it to the east wing in time for class, and she packs up her own things lazily. They aren’t in any big rush, to get to Professor Kiana’s office. It’s fine.

Eodwulf finishes packing up before she does, and when she glances up he’s in the front of the room, peering through a small hole in the framework that passes for a floor in the room.

He looks up and grins at her. “I can see into the lecture hall – I think Professor Lychio accidentally transmuted the podium to crystal, again. Citrine, this time.”

She laughs, quietly, and follows him as they climb back downstairs. The hidden staircase puts them out in a coat closet just to the side of the main entrance to the Academy, and as they spill out – covered in a faint layer of dust, hair ruffled from the small staircase, an ink splotch on Wulf’s shoulder and her own uniform mussed up – a passing Professor – and it’s Professor Jokea, s _cheisse_ – stops upon seeing them, and closes her eyes tightly, one hand reaching up to pinch the bridge of her hose.

They dart away while her eyes are still closed, and round the corner, sprinting full out. She probably just assumed they were –

Ugh.

Ew.

She – better than being found out for sneaking into upper-level lectures, she guesses, but ew.

Professor Kiana agrees to let them work together, for the song, and she and Wulf escape to the gardens outside, her violin case in hand and Wulf holding a thick packet of blank sheet music. Bren joins them the instant his class lets out, and they sit in the grass for hours, picking out lyrics and notes slowly and carefully.

Her hands make crowns of wildflowers and weeds for the boys while Wulf and Bren fight over what to title the song, and by the time the sun is setting, they stumble back towards the dorms warm from the sunlight and covered in pollen and flower petals.

She never wants to leave this school. Maybe, if she angles it right, she can go straight from being a student to being an assistant to being a professor, and she can teach conjuration to kids and do experiments and hang out with Bren and Wulf in the gardens outside.

She hopes, at least.

It seems like a good thing to dream for.

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> i love,,, writing


End file.
